Uninspired1979- Dreams La Romana Dominican Republic- pic heavy

[uninspired1979]

We are off on Tuesday to what I hope to be an amazing wedding and a fantastic vacation in the Dominican Republic. I wanted to share my story and my planning that I have been doing for the last 6 months. I hope this gives some of you some ideas, or at least makes you smile:)

 

Dave and I met 6.5 years ago on Match.com. We were both bored with our situations and just looking for another means to meet someone, well the first night we totally hit it off and have pretty much been together ever since. On July 21, 2009, a random weekday just like any other, Dave picked me up from work and we went to a bar. The objective was to get into a photo booth, nothing out of the ordinary for us since we have made it a point to take a photo booth photo every summer. Much to my surprise he proposed to me right there in the photo booth.

 

And from here began the journey of "planning a wedding".

[uninspired1979]

Dreams La Romana was an easy choice for us since some family members had vacationed there. My aunt is a travel agent and she too confirmed that this was a good choice. We spoke to family and friends and once everyone said they loved the idea we started working with the resort to set things up. The save the dates went out in September.

These were my first DIY project. I bought postcard paper at staples, and made the design myself in Illustrator. The hardest part was getting everything centered to print this was a major headache.

 

 

In September my mom flew in from Florida and we went dress shopping, we didn't agree on anything, but neither of us really liked anything either. Walking through NYC last December I spotted my dress in a store window, went in tried it on and I was done. It is a nude/sand mesh with lots of sequins and stones, very different from the traditional wedding dress.

 

 

After this there was no more planning until after the new year. We had made a promise not to start the wedding "noise" until 6 months out, that was a good idea, less headache and less fighting.

 

After the new year sometime in April I started getting ideas and working on the invites.

 

The invites went out in at the start of June of this year, and than the planning was in full swing but not before we did 1 very important thing.

[uninspired1979]

Sunday June 13, 2010, our 6 year anniversary, we got legally married. We had always joked that it would be cool to get married on our anniversary, and it all easily fell into place. A friend officiated , she has legal certification for many years but had never married anyone, so we wanted to give her that honor. We just got together at our place with our witnesses and a few additional close friends, had a sushi dinner, and I baked wedding cake. It was one of the most wonderful days of our relationship.

We didn't exchange rings that day as we wanted to save that for the wedding ceremony in November, but even without the rings it was a really special day.

 

No the planning was in full swing, I started with small DIY items and worked my way up, lol.

 

First I made drink stirrer flags. Easy enough.

 

Than bell wands, I saw this idea in a few different places and really liked it, it's my only cheese factor for the ceremony:) They too were easy enough, bought dowls,ribbon, and bells. Put it all together at the top with "map pins" and sewed the bows on using finishing line.

 

I did a little each night on the days that I came home with energy after work. That was the key, start early, do a little constantly, and it wont be overwellming. Next was on to designing all my stationary and paper goods, check out the next post.

[uninspired1979]

Here are the pics of all the paper goods I designed for the wedding day.

 

Escort Cards.

 

Menu Cards, just 1 for each table of 8:

 

Table Numbers: These are glasses vases covered in printed vellum paper, hopefully they all make it in 1 piece, if they do there will be a candle in each one lighting them up.

[uninspired1979]

Now I was on to the bigger more time consuming projects;

 

Box for seating cards;

 

Ring Pillow;

 

Flower Girl Basket:

 

Signs for the back of our chairs, in this pic they don't have the ribbons attached to the back yet.

 

"Here Comes the Bride" sign. This will be carried by one of the little girls right before I come down the aisle with my dad.

 

[uninspired1979]

Lastly my OOT bags. Dave and I spent A LOT of time thinking about this, we wanted to give 1 to each room (20), but we wanted to give something special and something that people would not also use again but really appreciate. Our bags will each contain the following, a "Survival Kit" got the idea from this forum and put my own twist on it. The kit has only a few key items in it as most of our guests are seasoned travelers and will probably have everything they need.

Items in Survival kits; bandaids, tylenol packets, 1 large safety pin, and Chinese White Flower balm, this is excellent for body aches and also strangely enough sunburns, it is my moms secret weapon.

We added a small packet a gum and candy just to have something sweet in each bag, never hurts to have gum, mints and candy around.

An Envirosax which is my favorite nylon shopping bag, it is fairly sized, comfy, strong, and rollable.

Finally our one splurge item, 4GB usb flash drives, custom engraved. We ordered them from China and saved some money, but they were still pretty pricey. What we did was pre-load each one with a few songs that will be played at the wedding. Some photos of us from a photo session our friend did after we got engaged, and I made a small piece of artwork to say thank you.

[uninspired1979]

Finally the last few bits of the puzzle; my wardrobe and accessories.

 

Showed you the dress in an earlier post, I wont be wearing a veil, so I hope they have some fresh flowers around that I can stick somewhere in my hair. As you can tell from the dress I was not interest in be a traditional bride, so makeup had to be funky, and hair is not "weddingy" and all.

 

Hair/Makeup final trial picks;

 

My shoes had to be silver to match all the detail on my dress, so I was happy when I found these silver shoes, the heel is so comfy. My mom bought me the purse in NY china town and it matched the dress exactly. She also purchased the earings for me, luckily they are not real so I don't have to worry about them. Lastly I will be wearing a White Sapphire tennis bracelt that Dave got me for my b-day a few years ago, it's at the jewelers being cleaned so I don't have a pic.

 

Finally our rings;

The pic isn't so great, but you get the idea.

To all the girls on the Dreams La Romana forum, FYI I did find the missing pink stone, it was hiding under the coffee table. Going to get it reset tomorrow.

 

 

That is all for me ladies. It is super late, but I wanted to make sure that I got this done before I left. There are a few more surprises, but I am saving those until after the wedding since they are things that only Dave and I know about. Maybe I will come back here and post the pics once we come home.

[uninspired1979]

Ah, I forgot one last thing, the guest book, my cousin, my maid of honor came over today and helped me put it together. It is pretty funky, we just printed and collaged a bunch of picks on the black pages in this book, since there will only be about 40 people at the wedding we only did 5 pages. It's a little cheesy, very cute, and super sweet. She gave me one of her picture frames so that we could use it on the table, and I just printed out the sign and stuck it in there.

 

 

 

If anyone has any questions about any of the things that I made please PM me and I'll be happy to try to explain. But more than likely I won't be answering any emails until mid December. Good luck with all the planning and thank you for everyones support.

[Sallee]

congratulations everything looks great

your dress is beautiful

[tgallo]

Everything looks great!   Have a safe trip and a GREAT honeymoon! =)